


Adjacent

by weeesi



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, But also sort of PWP, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Hotel Sex, M/M, Not too porny, Pining John, Pining Sherlock, Platonic Bedsharing Turns Non Platonic, Sharing a Bed, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:27:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4887184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeesi/pseuds/weeesi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oi. I’ve just asked you twice where our bloody room is.”</p><p>Oh, John.</p><p>“Rooms, I meant. Obviously.”</p><p>The innkeeper blew his nose into his handkerchief, already sodden with the effects of the spring bloom, and shot a knowing look between the two of them. “Ta, lads. Have a good ‘un.”</p><p>Sherlock rolled his eyes and spun on his heel, leaving John trailing behind him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adjacent

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, this fic happened because I spend way too much time on Tumblr and happened to see [this post](http://thememacat.tumblr.com/post/129951078545/theglitterypotato-vanetti) yesterday, where thememacat posited this set of circumstances:
> 
> They start out in separate but adjacent rooms, and spend half the night going back and forth on flimsy excuses like, “I forgot my toothbrush, may I borrow yours?” and each one remembering something they wanted to tell the other (and no, it can’t wait until morning!) until they finally give up and give in and crash in one bed
> 
> and then my hands slipped and I spewed out 5.7K of plotless fluff/smut. Not beta'd so if you catch a mistake, please let me know. 
> 
> Thanks, as always, for reading.  
> xx  
> w

“Mr. Holmes, you’ve got room number 31 and Mr. …Watson…33. Anything else, mate?” The innkeeper jostled a rumpled stack of papers on the desk before him, rapidly twitching his red and runny nose back and forth to stop an oncoming sneeze. “Bloody allergies. Right lot of bollocks, getting the blooming going so unexpected after the winter we had.”

_Fifty-six, married, three children, wanted to be a squash player, Chelsea fan, undiagnosed rheumatoid arthritis in left hand, coffee with milk, tea with four sugars, walks to work._

Sherlock squinted, unconsciously counting the moles on the man’s face ( _four_ ). There was something else.

_Secret. Secret stash of…_

“…full English until 08:00 each morning, so if you’re hungry chaps, you’d better get a move-on once you’re up. Mr. Holmes?” 

… _romance novels in his bottom right desk drawer._

“No. Fine. Thank you.” Sherlock grabbed the two copper keys dangling from the man’s hand. A funny little clanging sound as they bumped together echoed in the marble entry hall of the Smithfield Inn. Modern, built five years ago in some brambles a few hours out from London. Quite a couple of quid for a night’s stay too, and lucky that the client was paying the bill. Not that Sherlock cared, of course, but John did, and things that John cared about were things that Sherlock found himself caring about more and more often recently. He glanced down at the twinned keys nestled in his palm. “38 and 40, you said.” He felt his cheeks heat and a pinch in the pit of his stomach. “Those wouldn’t be adjacent—“

“Connecting doors actually. Figured since we couldn’t get you two into a nice suite. Bit busy with the spring crowd and the hot weather.”

“Sherlock? Got the keys then?” John winked as he appeared at Sherlock’s elbow, their overnight carryalls in hand. The tiniest smudge of raspberry jam lingered on the curve of his bottom lip. Sloppy eater.

A shallow swallow caught somewhere in between Sherlock’s throat and chest.

\-- _suddenly, reaching for the curve of John’s lip with the side of his thumb, touching, barely the gentlest of touches, eyes burning into John’s, an effortless touch, then bending his head, down, down, closer, the brush of lips, licking the jam off John’s_ \--

“Oi. I’ve just asked you twice where our bloody room is.”

Oh, John.

“Rooms, I meant. Obviously.”

The innkeeper blew his nose into his handkerchief, already sodden with the effects of the spring bloom, and shot a knowing look between the two of them. “Ta, lads. Have a good ‘un.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and spun on his heel, leaving John trailing behind him.

 

*****

 

They’d parted ways in the corridor, each forcing their own copper key into the lock on their entry doors. _Who makes keys out of copper these days anyway_ , John had muttered as he shoved his way into his room.

Which was swelteringly hot.

Otherwise, it was quite nice: a large bed with an obviously expensive white duvet cover was parked in the center of the room beneath a pseudo-painting of a pleasant landscape, the brand new flat-screen was perched on the corner of a beautifully carved oak wardrobe, a double-wide window at the far end showcased the view of the rolling hills surrounding the building. Early summer sunset had passed a few hours ago, and the curtains were drawn open to display the distant twinkling of stars through a dusting of clouds. Tasteful wallpaper. One of those speaker systems compatible with smartphones. A large table offered plenty of room to work and was set up with a basket of sweeties and bottled drinks. John plopped his bag down at his feet and wandered into the bathroom. Marble, marble, marble… everything. Plus apparently an infinity of fluffy white towels stacked in a cupboard taller than John.

_Thank god we’re not paying for this, christ._

He turned on the cold taps and ran his hands underneath, cupping to splash water on his face and the back of his neck. Somehow it was even more uncomfortably humid in the loo. If John were going to even think about sleeping tonight, he would need to turn on the air con. Ever since Afghanistan, sleeping in hot rooms more often than not resulted in nightmares he rather hoped to avoid. Sighing, he twisted off the taps, rubbed a towel over his skin, and shuffled back out into the room and over to the control panel embedded in the wall. 

_Power: on._

_Heat: off._

_Cool: on._

_On._

_On._

_Fan: On._

_On._

_On._

_ON._

The vent stayed infuriatingly silent.

_Fucking hell. The thing doesn’t even work._

He slumped in front of the unit, his head bumping back onto the wall behind him. Glancing over, he noticed for the first time a door connecting his room to Sherlock’s room between the bed and the window. The surface had been plastered over with matching wallpaper, hiding the connection between the two rooms save for the shiny brass doorknob.

Connecting rooms? They’d never had this before. Never.

Had Sherlock…requested it?

Only one way to find out.

“Sherlock, is the air con working in your room?” Four knocks and no answer. John thought through his options. Could be asleep, could be dissecting a specimen, could have disappeared thirty minutes ago and taken a train back to London. _No way to tell with him_ , John found himself smirking. He knocked again and silently counted to five. Right. He had to go in, there was no other way. “Sherlock? The air con?” John paused in the doorway, palming the doorknob mindlessly with one hand as he scratched his ear with the other. “Can’t seem to get mine started and—what the hell are you doing?”

Sherlock’s room was a mirror image of John’s, everything reversed and lined up against opposite walls. The pseudo-painting hung above his bed was of a slightly different but similarly vague English landscape, and his duvet cover was blue, not white, but nearly everything else was identical. Sherlock himself was fastidiously nestling his second pair of black socks into the wardrobe between his navy ones and the charcoal-coloured pants that John had accidentally glimpsed Sherlock in one morning in 221B as he skittered back into his room from the kitchen to check on a suddenly-remembered bacteria experiment.

A quite tight pair of charcoal pants that John secretly thought made Sherlock’s arse look, well… good.

“Just settling in. Unpacking. Et cetera.” He popped the consonants on each word, sending up puffs of air that fluffed his fringe. Sherlock was always undone by unintended effects.

“Sherlock. We’re here one night, you realise this.”

“No excuse for being untidy.”

“Untidy? I would honestly bet Mycroft, no, Mrs. Hudson—no, pretty much anyone who knows you, that you have no clue what that word means. Or the opposite of that word. I mean. Christ.” It was unseasonably warm, and John felt unseasonably warm. More so now, for some reason.

Maybe it was _slightly_ associated with the fact he’d just been thinking about Sherlock in those charcoal-coloured pants. 

He pinched the front of button-down between his thumb and finger, batting the thin fabric back and forth away from his skin. His back felt sweaty beneath his vest.

Sherlock was silent, busy picking lint off the turn-ups of his shirtsleeves. He looked up and sighed.

“As ever, John, you’re wrong. I know perfectly well what all variations of that word mean. Doesn’t mean I live by it.” He flopped down on his back onto the bed, shooting John a pointed look. “Words and actions can be egregiously at odds sometimes.”

Something dangerous sparked in the air. 

John cleared his throat.

“Right. So. Air con?”

“Why bother. It’s only one night.” Full-on eye roll and full-on body roll. Sherlock’s head turned safely away and towards the opposite wall meant John was faced with an unexpected view of Sherlock’s fully-dressed...

That word did dangerous things to John’s body when John’s brain chose to think about it. 

_If you only knew what you do to me, you git_.

“Never mind,” he substituted, and closed the door with a soft click.

 

*****

 

 _Ah, fantastic_ , Sherlock thought as he dug through his toiletry case and found two toothbrushes (one red, one blue) and no tube of toothpaste. He’d let a rather-hastily brewed and particularly bitter cup of coffee assault his taste buds for the better part of a half an hour, and now when there was nothing he wanted to do more than brush his teeth, naturally he couldn’t.

He glanced at the time glowing green in the darkened corner by his bed. Nearly midnight. Grabbing both toothbrushes in hand, he crossed the room in four long strides and whipped open the door to John’s adjacent room.

“Jesus, Sherlock! Don’t you knock? I didn’t barge into your room, for Christ’s sake,” John burst out, scrambling to cover his bare legs with the duvet cover ( _eggshell white, high thread count, Egyptian cotton)_ , looking sweaty and embarrassed.

They exchanged a moment of silence.

“It’s hot, alright? And I couldn’t get my bloody aircon to work, not that you care.”

“Toothpaste.” Sherlock crossed in front of ( _partially nude? bare legs anyway_ ) John on his way into the bathroom, punching on the light switch with his fist and scanning the contents of the marble ( _real, Italian_ ) sink stand.

_Razor, shaving cream, aftershave, comb—_

“Hang on, you’ve got my toothbrush.” John shuffled into the doorway, waddling awkwardly with the duvet cover wrapped around his thighs like an aging Greek god. Tufts of sandy blond hair stuck up across the hairline on the back of his neck. He smelled sweaty and warm and so _familiar_ as he reached across Sherlock to pick up a second tube of toothpaste, placing it firmly in Sherlock’s open palm as he tugged his blue toothbrush out of the closed one. “Must have grabbed yours and you grabbed mine. Erm.”

_What?_

“Clearly.”

A second John-breeze wafted over Sherlock as he crossed over to the shower and turned on the taps. “Cold shower ought to help, yeah?” John mumbled into the glass door as he felt for the water’s temperature with his fingers.

Sherlock realised his mouth had opened at some point. He closed it.

“Well. I’ll be. You know.” He left the words hanging in the humid bathroom air as he fled back to his room.

 

*****

 

John figured he’d try one knock this time.

“Have you come to chastise my temporary sock index?” came Sherlock’s voice through the closed door.

John rolled his eyes. “How do you index three pairs of socks? And why do you have three pairs of socks for an overnight—never mind. Look. I forgot to give you your train ticket for tomorrow.” He hesitated, his breath catching on an inhale. “Unless, I’m sure it could wait until morning—“

“Uh, no. It can’t wait—I need that now, actually.”

Sherlock was sprawled on the floor, in an old t-shirt and his cotton pyjama pants, multicoloured index cards with case notes spread around him seemingly haphazardly but John knew him too well to assume the patterns were anything but purposeful. Sherlock’s hair was a mess and his feet were bare and John keenly felt the backs of his own knees start to tingle.

“Well? The ticket?” 

“Sorry to interrupt you. Uh.” He held out the orange paper ticket between two fingers. Sherlock rose to his feet impossibly fluidly and moved determinedly into John’s space, reached out with those long, graceful fingers, grasped the paper in John’s hand and pulled it out, slowly…

_Fuck. I seriously should have finished wanking in the shower._

A nose crinkle.

“15:30?”

“Should give us time to interview that witness you were going on about earlier.”

John hoped his voice sounded casual.

The nose crinkle evaporated into a pleased look that tucked into the corners of Sherlock’s mouth and eyes. He looked almost… proud? Fond?

  _Impossible._

“It’s possible.”

“Huh?”

“Not scheduled but we’ll stop by. Nobody ever has anything important to do anyway.” 

“Oh and you do?” John crossed his arms over his chest in a further attempt to look casual.

“Of course _I_ do, John.” Sherlock spun on a heel and plopped down again amidst his index cards, tucking the ticket into the pocket of his pyjama bottoms. John stared at Sherlock’s throat moving as he took a gulp of cold coffee and swallowed with a grimace.

“Naturally, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked away. “I do. I’m here with you.” He tossed an errant card at John’s head, which drifted in a zigzag pattern down to rest over John’s left foot. “On the case.”

John ducked his chin to hide his smile as he closed the door. 

 

*****

_Don’t think about him_. Sherlock reshuffled his index cards again, fanning them out through his fingers carefully, precisely aligning the distances between the corners of each card before tossing the whole lot against the wall adjacent to John’s room. They fluttered to the ground quietly. Sherlock glared at them.

He rested his head in his hands.

_Don’t think about him._

He got up and pressed his ear to the door. Telly on, volume turned low, no noise from John. _Shower_? No. _Asleep_? Maybe.

A whisper, then. “John?”

“Sherlock?” 

Not asleep. Time to open the door.

“Did Mycroft text you?”

_Stupid. Stupid thing to say._

John was sat at the table, sweeties basket pushed aside, his laptop glowing faintly in the low light of the room, which only served to highlight the circles under his eyes. He reached for his phone, thumbing the button to light the screen. “Uh, no.” His forehead wrinkled up, eyebrows raised.

“Oh.”

“Um.”

“Let me know if he does.” 

“Right.”

 

*****

 

“Have you got an extra pillow you’re not using?” John leaned into his shoulder as he shifted his weight against the closed door, nearly toppling into the room as Sherlock pulled it open and shoved a fluffy white pillow into his hands.

“For your shoulder, right?” 

“Right. Thanks.”

“No problem.” Sherlock’s eyes were soft.

John was keenly aware of the sound of their mingled breathing. He closed the door with another soft click.

 

*****

 

 _Click_.

“John. Your toothpaste is disgusting.”

“Is not, you wanker. It’s the same brand you use.”

“We’re changing brands.”

_Click._

 

*****

 

_Click._

“Sherlock, try this tea.”

“Why.”

“Just try it.” Cupid bow lips complied and curved to take tiny sip. “Taste right to you? Dunno about that milk.”

“Definitely off.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

  _Click._

 

*****

 

_Click._

“Did you tell Mrs. Hudson we were going to be away for the night?”

“Did, and she’s checking for that post from Liverpool.”

“Oh, right.”

“Well, I’ll be next door.”

“Right.”

_Click._

 

*****

 

_Click._

“John, have that number Graham gave you yesterday?”

“Who?”

“Graham.”

“Greg.”

“Who?”

“Never mind.” Fingers poked into zippered pockets. “Here’s the card.”

  _Click._

*****

 

  _Click._

“Sherlock, did that bloke at the desk say anything about a breakfast?”

“Full English until 08:00. Not certain what else. I was a bit distracted.”

“Distracted?”

“He has a desk drawer full of romance novels, John.”

“That’s a new one.”

“It’s really not. Loads of people read that stuff. Totally insipid and unbearably reductive plotlines yet surprisingly erotic in some cases.”

The sound of hastily cleared throats filled the room. “Not that I would know—“

“—I wouldn’t know.”

A quick beat of silence.

“Well. I’ll have breakfast. Doubt you’ll eat, right?”

“You can leave the door open, or. No, better close it.”

“’Night, Sherlock.”

“Goodnight, John.”

  _Click._

 

*****

 

 _He doesn’t feel things that way._ John squashed the pillow under his shoulder.

 _John wouldn’t want to. Impossible._ Sherlock rolled onto his back.

_I think I ought to check if Sherlock’s –_

_I should see if John –  
_

Two hands reached for opposite sides of the door and two brains counted the thudding of their own heartbeats in silence.

_He’s sleeping, probably._

_He’ll think I’m crazy._

_He can’t ever know I’m in love with him._

_I’m in love with him. He can’t ever know._

Two heads fell back on two pillows.

 

*****

 

“John?” A soft _tap-tap-tap_ on the door interrupted the rather bland talk show John was trying to half-watch as he stretched out on his bed, trying to half-write another blog post and half-ignore the torrent of tempting thoughts to just stick his fist down his pants and be done with it. He turned his head, stiff neck protesting, to check the time. Tired as he was, his sleep schedule was fucked up enough that he knew when it wasn’t worth trying.

Gone 04:00.

“Yeah.”

The door swung open. A surprisingly tired looking Sherlock tentatively poked his head through.

“You decent?”

John had to chuckle in spite of himself. “Since when do you care about decent?”

“I’ve never cared about anything decent a day in my life.”

_And that’s why I bloody love you._

Sirens went off in John’s head. Christ. That was far too close to saying it out loud.

Sherlock made a movement as though he meant sit on the end of bed then changed his mind, which stiffly stranded him halfway between the open door and John’s mid-thigh region. “The witness we ought to question. What, uh, colour was that dress she was wearing on Thursday?”

In earlier days, John would have been surprised, or asked why Sherlock would want to know, or struggled to remember, but he’d found himself mentally cataloguing more useless information that he’d care to admit since he and Sherlock had started working together. And living together. And… lots of other things together.

“Uh, green, I think. Like a pale, minty green.”

“Wow, John. Impressive.” John knew he was trying to sound sarcastic. Sherlock was pleased, and John knew it. Sherlock also would have remembered what colour the woman’s dress had been, and John knew it. As to why he was asking John now, in the wee hours of the morning, John hadn’t the faintest.

“I do what I can.”

Sherlock wandered over to the rather posh air con unit and fiddled with some buttons on the control panel. A blast of cool air suddenly shot out of the vent, blowing back his pyjama bottoms and smoothing over John’s skin like salve.

“Oh. That’s perfect. ‘Course you would be able to—“

“—turn it on with just a few touches of my fingers after you pounded away at it to no avail?”

Not for the first time, John wished he could consciously control his blood flow, because it certainly would not be traveling to his face and also a more private area at the moment. John also wished that he wasn’t the only one out of the two of them who apparently understood innuendo.

Before he could think of a sufficiently neutral response, Sherlock had disappeared. The door was, once again, closed.

 

*****

 

Sherlock had his eyes closed, one arm bent behind his head and a knee drawn up at an angle as he slumped on his bed. Thinking about the case, not thinking about John, thinking about John, not thinking about the case; he really couldn’t tell anymore and he didn’t care either. 

_Stop. Check the time_.

04:25.

He sighed. At least an hour or two more before anyone else in this stupid hotel would be awake. _Except for John. John’s still awake_. Sherlock shifted and crossed his legs at the ankles, rolling onto his back and weaving his fingers together over his chest. _Although maybe he would have fallen asleep now, with the air con on and the duvet pulled over him. He likes to think he can power through these nights when I’m not sleeping but he’s incredibly variable when it comes to melatonin production._

He moved to rest a hand tentatively over his stomach, palm flat, fingers stretched wide.

 _My hands are approximately 1.64 times larger than John’s. His fingers would only reach about_ – he curled his fingers up – _probably here if he touched me in this same place. If his hand was pressed flat against me._

Sherlock let his hand collapse on his stomach again. He kept his eyes closed, his lips parting slightly as he let the fantasy come. He felt weak and selfish and he couldn’t resist anymore.

His hand moved to rest lightly over the semi-hard bulge in his pyjama bottoms.

_And here. If he touched me here.  
_

He pressed in with the heel of his hand onto the length of himself, experimenting with a small motion. Blood coursed from his head and limbs into the center of his body. Another small motion, expanding his hand to palm his cock, and he felt his breath catch.

_If he was in here with me, touching me, just like this—_

another rub, breath exhaled through his nose

_—and I let him, I want to let him, and he let me touch him too, I could touch him—_

“Sherlock?”

_Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._

Sherlock’s eyes flew open as he pulled his hand away from his groin faster than he’d recalled pulling it away from open flames. He hadn’t even heard the door open. John stood in the entryway, chewing his bottom lip, overtiredness written in the lines of his forehead and around his eyes. He hadn’t seemed to notice the state of Sherlock’s pants or where his hand had been moments before.

“Look, my room’s freezing now and the bloody air con—“

“Oh god. You’re obsessed, John.”

John looked startled. “What? Not with y—”

“With the air con. First it’s too hot, then it’s too cold—“

“—sorry that I have temperature expectations like a normal human being—“

“—and apparently your cold shower obviously didn’t work—“

“—because we can’t all be half reptilian like you apparently are—“

“—and you come barging in here for the umpteenth time—“

“—so I’d like to sleep in here if that’s alright.”

“—so why don’t you just sleep in here then.”

A pause.

“Of course it’s alright.” _Don’t give yourself away_. “I mean, it’s fine. I guess.”

 _You’re an idiot_.

“Great.” John shuffled over to the space between the window and the bed, dumped his armful of pillows and the bunched up duvet on the floor, and started to kick them into place. He’d changed ( _finally_ ) into a pair of boxer shorts and an old army t-shirt and looked pleasantly ruffled from trying to sleep for the last 25 minutes. He flopped down onto his makeshift bed and shifted into his regular sleeping position ( _on his back, pillow supporting his shoulder to combat stiffness in the morning, legs spread slightly—legs—spread—_ )

Sherlock’s forgotten half-erection threatened to make itself known again.

He quickly tabulated the atomic weights of a combination of no less than fourteen elements and looked away from John (eyes closed and legs spread out on the floor beside him), instead sternly staring at the corner of the room where two walls met.

They didn’t speak for eleven minutes.

“I know you’re thinking it.” Sherlock broke the silence.

“What? I’m not thinking anything,” came John’s voice from the floor.

“Get up here. Sleeping on the ground is horrific for shoulders, particularly those with traumatic injuries.”

“Oh I dunno, this duvet probably cost as much as my yearly salary and the carpet’s pretty posh so—“

“John, shut up and get into bed with me.”

That came out rather wrong. Well, right…but. “I mean, into—onto—this bed.”

_You are a gigantic idiot. Now he’ll get up and leave, or find someone else’s room to sleep in. Fix it._

The words tumbled out of his mouth. _“_ I won’t sleep anyway so it’s not _with me_ per se, in the sense that—people normally sleep together, in the same bed together, for sexual reasons, not that I’m, anyway, but you can have the bed and I’ll go into your room, or—“

John was already sitting up. He groaned as he shifted onto his knees before standing and crossing the short distance over to the bed. “Christ. Seriously, thanks. That floor is fucking miserable.” Sherlock felt the weight of him bend the mattress to his left.

Oh, he should probably move over a bit.

John swallowed audibly. “And, um. No. You don’t have to go to my room. It’s fine. If you wanted to stay here and just, lie there or do whatever. I’m going to be asleep in thirty seconds anyway, so.” He sucked in a breath through pursed lips as punctuation. 

Sherlock looked down at his feet through his eyelashes.

They hadn’t made eye contact since John sat on the bed. Now, as he shifted onto his back and tussled with oversized pillows, Sherlock could feel John’s body heat steadily soak into his skin. He sat awkwardly, cross-legged, less than a metre away from him. From John.

John, who was currently spread out next to Sherlock in bed, in his boxer shorts.

John, who would soon feign to be asleep so that the small moments of tension and confusion between them could pass unaddressed.

John, who was small and angry and perfect and whose body chemistry smelled so good that sometimes Sherlock wondered if somehow he did it on _purpose_.

John sighed. “Hm. S’ bed is nice.” He rocked his hips and slightly pushed them into the mattress, the small of his back arching away from the bed. “Better than mine.”

Sherlock felt his stomach clench and heat pool between his legs. He sniffed defiantly.

“They’re the same beds, John.” 

“Can’t be.” 

“You’re wrong.”

“No, _you’re_ wrong.”

“Go check the mattress brand.”

“Forget it. I just escaped from my wintery hellhole of a room, I’m not going back in there. You go check.” He shifted his hips again. The flap opening to his boxers peeked open a bit, giving Sherlock a blurred glimpse of secret skin.

 _Damn it, John_.

“I’m not leaving this bed.”

“Well good. Neither am I.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

An impasse. What the hell were they even doing?

A few more minutes lapsed in silence, John’s eyes resolutely closed, Sherlock’s eyes resolutely not looking at the tiny open gap in John’s pants.

“Lie down at least.” John’s voice was starting to turn gravelly from lack of sleep. “It’s a bit weird you’re just sitting there.”

Sherlock opened his mouth and closed it. He slowly eased himself onto his back and felt his heartbeat start to race as he stretched out self-consciously on the large mattress beside John. Darkness loomed around them but he could make out John’s profile by the dim green light of the clock.

John licked his lips, leaving them parted.

Sherlock turned his head.

John opened his eyes.

Sherlock rolled onto his side.

John shifted a leg into the middle of the bed.

Sherlock placed his hand, tentatively, on the mattress between them.

John rolled onto his side.

Sherlock coughed.

John closed his eyes.

Sherlock tucked his chin to his chest.

John rolled onto his back.

Sherlock turned his hand palm up.

Somehow, they slept. Sherlock too.

 

*****

 

The alarm bleeped weakly against the shell of John’s ear. He smacked at it with his left hand without looking, groaning at the uncomfortable pull of the muscle connecting his shoulder and his neck. He’d lived with the injury for years now, and it never failed to remind him of that fact.

 _Bloody hell. Ninety minutes of sleep will have to do it then._

They had a long day in front of them, interviewing witnesses and following up on two potential leads for a recent string of stabbings Scotland Yard was only now starting to find interest in and Sherlock had been following for weeks. John didn’t get the index card scheme Sherlock had constructed but then again John didn’t get a lot of things about this case.

John didn’t get a lot of things about Sherlock, frankly.

He never thought Sherlock would’ve welcomed him into his bed last night, or that they would’ve essentially slept together, but there you have it.

He placed his left hand back to rest on his chest, scratching absentmindedly. His right—

His right hand was nestled in the palm of Sherlock’s left hand curled in the middle of the bed.

A wave of panic surged through his body.

Before he could pull away, Sherlock’s eyes fluttered half-open. A half second passed before he too realised the predicament they found themselves in. Another half second passed while they both furiously ran through the options in their heads. Their eyes locked onto each other’s like finally sighting a target after missing it for so long.

Their hands stayed put.

Their bodies didn’t.

Almost at the same moment, John pulled as Sherlock pushed their clasped hands to John’s chest, followed by Sherlock’s shoulders and hips sliding like a magnet towards John’s outstretched body. He could feel Sherlock’s breath on his face, the warm heat of him, and the smell of his mussed hair, and his pliant, long limbs still sleep-drunk. He could see the kiss of dark colour above Sherlock’s pupil, could see Sherlock trying not to count John’s heartbeats which he could doubtless feel through the back of his hand, could see the corners of Sherlock’s mouth curving up. His breath smelled of toothpaste. Their brand of toothpaste.

John wanted to taste the toothpaste in Sherlock’s mouth.

He dipped his chin, nodding the question, and waited.

Raised eyebrows, recognition, a surge of electricity. The distance between them evaporated.

Lips collided at first, shyly, tentatively, exploring the newness of the sensation, dry then wet, slick, warm; moved towards hunger and desperation, deepening, opening the kiss, consuming each other, hands drifting up towards jawlines and around the backs of necks. 

Sherlock kissed John like he’d thought he’d never get the chance. John kissed Sherlock like—

_What am I kissing Sherlock like…_

_Oh my god I’m kissing Sherlock_

John pulled back for a moment. “This all right?”

Sherlock’s plum-pink lips parted. His face was radiant white hot, incandescent. A demanding little sound escaped from the back of his throat that was such an unequivocally Sherlockian combination of irritation and desire that John nearly laughed. In response, Sherlock slotted their legs together and rolled his hips as he slid a hand between their bodies, resting it on the curve just below John’s belly, over the top of his waistband.

“Yeah, John. All right,” he whispered, panting against his mouth.

John couldn’t recall a time in recent memory when he’d been able to get that hard, that fast.

He flipped them both in one swift move, positioning Sherlock into place beneath him, smoothing down Sherlock’s curls with one hand, Sherlock pulling up his own t-shirt with the other, stretches of hot, creamy skin exposed and glowing in the early light, their mouths and bodies finding where they fit together in perfect places undiscovered and unknown before this morning, this moment. 

John couldn’t stop his hips from working against Sherlock, matching a rhythm set by Sherlock’s own thrusts, knees spread wide, carefully, his spine moving in waves as he arched his back and pressed himself into the warm length of Sherlock’s bare chest, his body, his erection rubbing hot, the tip wet, into the warm space between Sherlock’s upper thigh and cock.

Sherlock sigh-groaned. “You missed the mark, John.”

“What?”

Almost shyly, Sherlock tugged on his pyjama waistband with one hand, inching it down until John could see tufts of black hair and the base of—

but he didn’t see the rest, because Sherlock pulled him into another kiss and realigned their hips and somehow fixed everything that had ever gone wrong in John’s life.

Long fingers tucked around the curves of John’s arse, kneading mindlessly into muscle. They didn’t stop to take off shirts and pants, however much John would have liked to, because Sherlock was too busy leaving wet kisses up the side of John’s neck and John was too busy breathing into the notch at the base of Sherlock’s throat and maybe once, just once, he darted out the tip of his tongue to taste the sweat gathering there. They needed each other _now_ , there could be no deliberation, no time to trade off wrapping loose, lazy fists around each other and fucking into each other’s skin, pumping slowly until the sensation became too much. The whole world collapsed down to the size of the bed, the only sounds the soft panting escaping Sherlock’s lips, the circulation of recycled air from one set of lungs to the other, the way John’s breath hitched with each shift of cock on cock, each graze of belly skin on belly skin.

They were deprived and desperate for each other, trying to fuck but ending up making love in the push and pull of their bodies on top of the obviously expensive, high thread-count duvet. 

With a moan Sherlock came first, spurts of come soaking into his bottoms pulled tight against his skin. He sucked a kiss onto John’s bottom lip, hands trembling, and pulled John’s pants to his knees as John reached down to wrap a fist around himself and with a few short strokes, came all over the already-damp spot between them, his spent cock pulsing weakly in his hand, his chest heaving.

Sherlock reached up and brushed a sweaty curl off his own forehead, then slowly traced with two fingertips the arc of John’s bicep, now straining with exertion and the long effort of extension. John flopped down on the bed and stretched out the muscles in his arm and hand, extending his fingers over Sherlock’s stomach, pants still twisted around his knees as Sherlock tried to regulate his breathing by exhaling through his nose.

Their hands found each other again in the sated silence, fingers intertwined.

Finally it dawned on him. John groaned. “It was you, wasn’t it.”

“Hm?” Sherlock turned his head, his expression the very picture of innocence.

“The stupid air con. You set it too cold! You wanted me to come in here and bother you.”

“Absolutely not, John, you came and bothered me under your own volition.” He rubbed the back of John’s hand with his thumb. “And as for the other thing, I’m not going to dignify that question with a response.” He pressed a kiss to middle of John’s palm. “In fact, I resent the implication.”

John smiled. “You’re still awfully wordy after you come.”

“Try me again.” Sherlock winked, pulling a crumpled train ticket out from under his back and pulling John into another kiss.


End file.
